Eurogamer Report Suggests Nintendo Switch GPU Runs 60 Percent Slower When Undocked

Anyone who's more hardware savvy than me have any idea what this means for those big AAA games we were all hoping could end up on the Switch (Assuming this rumor is true)? Currently, it's not looking good. After all, they won't have "dock exclusive" games.

I don't know if I believe this, honestly. but I guess we'll see.

@KirbyTheVampire either they wont come or they will be downgraded versions. In the end it was really foolish for some to expect close to xbox one performance with the X1.

Oh boy, here comes a big messy argumentative debate in the comments about whether or not power is important. Seriously though, let's just wait and see until the Switch presentation to see what the system is capable of

I'm glad that I've been proved wrong on the dock, but now we need the number of shaders (the so-called CUDA cores), it seems to me incredible that while docked the Switch will have only 256 shaders running at 768 MHz, this would be less than the X1 and even I am not THAT pessimistic!

That's understandable if true (shruggs shoulders). I'm still buying it day one.

As they pointed out, you don't need as much power when outputting to a smaller screen at a lower resolution, but man. Forty percent. Really hoping the battery life is decent.

@diwdiws I was really expecting Pascal, not the X1. I was really hyped, but this isn't sounding all that encouraging. I think most AAA studios won't bother unless the game is a good fit. Will have to wait and see for the official news

Sounds bad. Good God Nintendo stop cutting corners. They're their own worst enemy.

January 13th can't come soon enough. If this is true then I think it's dead in the water. What's the point?

@Mister_Wu by a significant margin! Xbone has 768 Cuda Cores running at 850 mhz.

@Grez as stated in the article, people must have tempered expectations. Most likes it will get some AAA games that are not graphically intensive but mostly it will again be a Nintendo machine

What @KirbyTheVampire said, sadly. We're losing third-party support once again, plain and simple.

You hear from the chip people that it should be fine. Of course, they have a vested interest.
You hear from the tear down people bits and pieces that make it sound like it won't be. Of course, some of them have traditional biases.
Que sera sera

After what has happened with previous consoles, I find it hard to believe that this report is accurate. That third party developers may have a new reason to be put off from the next console.
It's far more likely that whatever difference between docked and un-docked, this will be an easier system to develop for, that will attract more third parties to release their games. I think we will see more multi-platform titles on Nintendo's console for the next generation.

How are Skyrim Remastered and Dark Souls 3 able to run on those specs?

Seems like this will be more a home console first and a Virtual Console on the go.

I never viewed this as an alternative to PS4/XBO (you should own one of those or a good gaming PC anyway), I viewed it as an alternative to having to buy two Nintendo systems to play all Nintendo games. If you take all of the good first party games on Wii U and on 3DS, and combine them into a lineup for one system, you're doing pretty good for yourself.

@diwdiws I meant the Tegra X1, from current research the Wii U appears to have 320 shaders running at 550 MHz, these clocks would create a portable Wii U at best! While I can see them targeting this use case in the trailer, it seems to me a bit excessive, I think the number of shaders at least will be higher if these specs are confirmed!

Another Nintendo first party machine for me

(In 'Gauntlet' voice-over): Nintendo... is about to die.

OR the machine runs 60% faster when docked. Glass half full people, glass half full.

Nintendolife is here to return the internet to its original form. The choir is back, the high pitched children in holy robes start chanting while the ladies in the back sing the mezzo part through the echoey halls of the cathedral of the tech goddess:

"Doomed..."

Best interpreted as an 8 second long "doo-oo-ooo-oo-ooooooo-ooo-mm-eed". Replenish your hearts here, internet warrior.

@Mister_Wu Yep, this just seems entirely too weak to be true. If it's not even as powerful as the Shield TV this will fail. I do have a Shield TV and it's fantastic device for what it is though. If these specs are true then it's use as a home console will diminish greatly.

I really can't wait for January.

@abbyhitter skyrim remastered can even run on my GTX 570, albiet with some compromises. Skyrim isn't really a poster boy for cutting edge benchmark.

With regard to DS3, they said they will consider porting, its not like there sre any indication that they succeeded in porting it

An unofficially confirmed rumor (but coming from multiple trustable sources) says from a long time (1 year I guess) that the Switch's dev kits allows developpers to adapt very easily big games to its power. So yes, adapting a AAA game on Switch or from the 1080p to the 720p configuration is not automatic, but it would be very very easy, especially compared to adapting a PC game to a PS4 or X-Box 1.

That easy conversion would apply to adapting a big AAA PC game to the Switch itself. So yes, it would mean that a third party developper won't have to spend a lot of money on the Switch's versions of the games. That includes a Dark Souls 3

And that's very good.

I... Oh no.

Okay, it's not the end of the world, of course. This IS Nvidia tech after all, which has been proven again and again to be more optimized than AMD tech. CPU is constant meaning that the Switch's framerate probably won't vary too much between docked and undocked, which is great. The 60 percent decrease in GPU power won't matter too much when the number of pixels the game is running is cut in half — really, only a few bells and whistles needs to be removed.

But... Maxwell?? X1!? Really?!

Best case scenario, these reports are based on the first dev kits that were sent out and not the revised ones (it's rumored that the developers were sent two dev kits, the first having an X1 chip with only 3 hours of battery life).

This is going to get ugly.

Still getting it. Interesting though. Come onnnn Jan 12/13.

@smashboy2000 Yes, pretty much any game can theoretically run on the Switch, but how much needs to be sacrificed for it to run? That's really the big question. At the end of the day, I think the Switch will get much better 3rd party support than the Wii U, but I don't think we can expect some of the major AAA games like Prey. We have to keep in mind that this is a tablet we're working with here, which, by nature, can't be an extreme powerhouse.

Well, they should be able to hit that $250.00 USD price point with no problem....

@KirbyTheVampire Without knowing how many cuda cores are in there, there's little point in trying to gauge the overall power of the thing.

I was so right on when I said Nintendo was crazy to push this as a console first. It's a handheld...call it that or you look kind of silly, Nintendo.

I don't think Nintendo will let us down. Amen until January 12th

Called it. Said a few weeks ago it's only a matter of time until 3rd parties (the ones that actually will still be on Switch) will be having "docked only" games on the system as dev resources move onto the PS4 Pro and Scorpio specifications.

Switch needs to: 1. Debut at no more than $250 and 2. Have a successor by mid to late 2019 at the latest ala PS4 Pro and XB One S.

This is a handheld plain and simple. The specs are not to great when docked. Really disappointed to be honest.

Even as a handheld I am worried about the performance of the software. All this talk of if the performance being lot worse when undocked is worrying to hear.

I'm gonna say this before I hold up anything until January 13th: It's some sort of anti-Nintendo propaganda to ruin the picture of Nintendo Switch before it's released, or even revealed.

With that, all we may hear until that date is rumour.

720p is 44% the number of pixels 1080p is. It looks like this is a calculated decision based on pixel count in an effort to save battery. Do the math.

@cfgk24 if you think that come January 12th Nintendo is going to tell you something that will refute or debunk these claims, you're going to be sadly disappointed.

It really depends on whether you see this system as portable or as a home console. If we were talking about a portable, it wouldn't matter as much but as a home console, power matters. Not to me, I know I will be getting my money's worth out of first party games alone, especially now with the Nintendo dev teams unified, but to third parties and the masses that skipped and condemned the Wii U. I want this system to be successful and Nintendo to stay in the hardware business until I am very old, but this pattern seems rather familiar and it's making me nervous.

@kobashi100 You absolutely don't need to worry about its power as a handheld. It will be the most capable handheld we've ever had. Its performance as a console is what's worrying people.

@TruenoGT it was actually both.

Proof, pudding... will be in the eating!

If all third party devs jump ship because of a lack of power again, at least Nintendo and their second parties will be pumping out games just for one system and not dividing their attentions between two consoles. This means that we will have more games than during the Wii U 3ds era

Yeah, I'm waiting for actual information on this thing, not a thousand rumors that say a thousand different things.

@abbyhitter since the company that owns dark souls already said they had dark souls 3 running on the switch and they liked it.

I don't know too much about the tech talk but these guys make it seem as if it will be really weak. I know it doesn't make sense for companies to talk down a partner that would , hopefully, be lucrative. This report though seems to be calling all these "excited" third parties full of it. With new games coming out needing power which the switch apparently lacks, why be excited? Unless that is excitement for releasing crappy ports of 360/ps3 ports. That pretty much dooms third party support.

Personally I don't care how good a game was I'm not paying sixty bucks for any game that is no longer that price on another console. If third parties bring out all those old games at 20 bucks a pop they will do well. I just really hope they don't expect us to buy old games at new prices. Like I said I'm not big on the technological language used here, so I'm not sure just how bad this is. Honestly though knowing Nintendo I wouldn't be surprised if we are getting a really undempowered system. "Now you're playing with power".....yeah underpowered, power. Oh well....

Yeah, there are, like, a thousand rumors out there all saying different things, so I'm going to wait until we actually know more about what's going on inside of the system before I rush to judgment.

@Tingle_The_Great Yeah. If worst comes to worst, I think Nintendo could probably float the Switch with their own
development resources and the inevitable support of Japanese third parties. Definitely wouldn't be ideal for sales, but all I really need is support from Nintendo and Atlus.

@Ralizah that would be a dooms day scenario for Nintendo, after 4 years of Wii U. Their investors would probably bail.

@gatorboi352 A lack of Western third party support wasn't a "doomsday scenario" for the 3DS.

@Ralizah problem for Nintendo is that they are officially positioning Switch as their next home console, so any comparisons against 3DS unfortunately don't apply here.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE
I totally agree

Specs make sense regarding battery life and keeping costs down. I don't care personally, but the market might. It is a bit disappointing because inevitably it means that newest heavy hitters won't be showing on the Switch.

For Nintendo's sake, let's hope it's cheap and offers great user experience and games.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE #11 "If this is true then I think it's dead in the water. What's the point?"

The point is that Nintendo doesn't look to replace PlayStation and Xbox in people's homes, but get the Switch alongside them as well as put a Nintendo console in the hands (pun intended) of people who generally don't use as much money on gaming.

For better or worse, Nintendo is continuing making consoles for themselves, and hoping that they can offer unique enough experiences that people are convinced to invest into (hence drawing in Third Parties as well).

I'm not that tech savvy but reading this felt like Nintendo took the Nvidia Shield and made it less powerful. Hope I'm in the wrong, but it would be the kind of monumentally stupid thing Nintendo engineers use to do on occasion.

@diwdiws I thought it was DS3 and trilogy might be considered based on sales.

@yomanation I'm not "comparing" it to 3DS, just saying that, worst comes to worst and this is another Wii U, it'll help a lot having traditionally portable Nintendo games on it.

@gatorboi352 Sure they do, because, in all likelihood, Nintendo is also maining the Switch as its official handheld this gen. If it gets Pokemon, Fire Emblem, etc. and has a decent battery life, a large portion of its audience is probably going to be composed of handheld users.

@Pahvi @Mechageo There's more to running graphics than pushing pixels. Shaders, lighting, textures, number of polygons etc. all use the GPU. We should expect lower quality graphics overall when mobile.

I think it's ingenious, if you view the Switch as a powerful portable gaming system.

january full reveal can't come soon enough.

@Samurai_Goroh That wouldn't happen. Nvidia is involved in this thing too. They would do their absolute best to make sure this thing isn't a failure. How well the Switch does remains to be seen, but we can absolutely 100% guarantee that this is a more capable machine than the Shield.

I don't see why people would be expecting anything different from this... it's a hybrid console... it functions as if it was a home console or a handheld console... not both at the same time.
Handheld consoles do not have the same sort of power as a home console... if they did, then home consoles themselves would become irrelevant... so you shouldn't expect it to have as much power when running in handheld mode.

@joealejos ''OR the machine runs 60% faster when docked. Glass half full people, glass half full.''

Portable mode is underclocked, hence it runs slower. If docked mode runs at 100%, that's the standard. But I believe that even docked it won't reach the clockspeed that the chipset is designed for. Anyway, that explains the wording. It's not a matter of perspective in this case.

@Moshugan "if you view Switch as a powerful portable gaming system"

Someone over at Nintendo better tell them to stop advertising it as their next home console, then.

anybody worried about tripla-a titles on switch, this is one of the nvidia techniques likely used to make it happen. it works on maxwell as it's reportedly to be used on switch. could still be x2 pascal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0TXZaxisbU

Bye bye 3rd party support if this turns out to be true.

@DragonEleven "Handheld consoles do not have the same sort of power as a home console... if they did, then home consoles themselves would become irrelevant"

This couldn't be any further from the truth. People around here don't seem to understand how insignificant portable gaming is to the Western markets. Even more niche is portable gaming with Home console AAA experiences. How many of you actually play your DS or 3DS outside of your homes on a regular basis? I'd venture not many.

I wish I could leave an optimistic comment but this article doesn't read well.If there is no real noticeable improvement over Wii U's graphics I'll be sorely disappointed.I didn't expect it to have Xbox One's power but I did expect it to be closer to the One than Wii U.

Sonds like a hardware hell to develop for. Not again, please.

@Pahvi it doesn't scale like that. You are only talking about resolution. Resolution doesnt really impact GPU resources that much. What impacts GPU performace are the lighting, shadows, post processing and other effects. In my experience when lowering resolution in PC games, mostly you get a bump of FPS at around 2-3 FPS and thats it.

I don't care about AAA third parties, I'll be happy with the third party support the 3ds had.
The problem is with nintendo and their "Home console first marketing" =/

@OorWullie even if it had Xbox One power we're still talking about a console that is 3 years old. How the switch cannot match such average power by today's standards is quite baffling. This console is being put out to pasture with a 2 year shelf life with these specs.

@gatorboi352 No idea what you're getting at there, but it doesn't detract from my point in the slightest.

Please excuse my colossal ignorance, but what is the difference between the CPU and the GPU and how do they work together? Why does one have varying clock speeds here but the other doesn't, and what does this actually mean for performance? Is it just about the pixel definition (on 2 different screens, so makes sense) or will this kill the frame rate, loading times, pop-up range, texture detail?

@DragonEleven ok then, you tell me: why, in your scenario of super powerful portable consoles, would home consoles then become irrelevant?

@gatorboi352 Yep,it seems so.I can imagine tablet upgrades every 2 years which could be fairly cheap as they won't need to include dock and controllers for those that already have them.That's actually a great idea and one I'd be happy with but if they're starting with such low power to begin with does that mean we have to wait 2 years to even bring it up to being comparable with the Xbox One's power?

Hilarious. Chill out folks, do you want a new Nintendo console with great games or do you want a PS4 with a Nintendo logo on the front? I seriously fail to understand all the uproar. Whoever is looking for Switch to be equal to the other consoles in order to play big AAA western games, guess what? You CAN buy the other console istead. What's stopping you?

Seriously @ThomasBW84 , how did this person got a star on his name?

@OorWullie heh, maybe. Never know with Nintendo. But they have shown, if we ARE to make comparisons to their portable division with Switch, that they are more than willing to offer up mid-gen upgrades. Hopefully that's one trait they carry over into this console.

@gatorboi352 XBone might be 3 years old but Microsoft haven't been able to shrink it down to the size and portability of the Switch or they probably would.

Anyone who thought this tiny portable device was going to measure up to PS4 / Xbox specs has been kidding themselves.

Being 3–8 times weaker than Xbox One like this is going to mean that third-parties won't be able to port AAA console games without costly downgrades which might not be worth it, financially or critically. Especially if they have to hit 1080p in docked mode, as Xbox One runs many of those games in 900p.

@Mario_Fart um, but they did do the Xbox One S. It's almost half the size of the original XB1 and more powerful.

@gatorboi352 Can you play it on the go, though?

@gatorboi352 The advantage of home consoles is their power, and the advantage of handhelds is their portability... if handhelds had the same power as home consoles then there would be no advantage in getting a home console rather than a handheld, making them irrelevant.

@gatorboi352 How is that relevant? The Xbox One S isn't a portable.

I just hope this thing attracts developers like the 3DS. It's going to need a tempting library to make up for the AAA big hitters.

Comment section aready counting doom, Mushroom captain waits on the jan 12th/release day to see what the switch can do, true or untrue specs.

There won't be any difference at all! It's all dumb rumors.

@DragonEleven Not really. I could see consoles maybe becoming obsolete in favor of hybrids, but true handhelds would never replace consoles. A lot of people prefer TV play over playing on a screen that's a few inches long.

@gatorboi352 Half the size, yes. But the Nvidia Tegra K1 tablet (about the size of Switch if not bigger) is 16 times smaller than Xbox One S in terms of volume. Plus portables do not have full power supply from your wall socket. And this report says that Switch is using the last generation of chip architecture, not even the smaller 14–16 nm chips that allowed Xbox One S' size reduction.

@Henmii Whether there will be a difference noticeable enough to have a significant impact on gameplay remains to be seen, but there will absolutely be a difference. The core system won't change whether it's docked or undocked, but the dock does help it to run games more smoothly because of its additional cooling and such.

@Henmii I'm not sure how long you can keep dismissing the rumours as "dumb" when most of them so far have proven to be 100% spot on.

so it looks like hopes of it being based off pascal/x2 are dead in the water. and it's potentially not even 16/14nm either. if the switch ends up being a downgraded tegra x1 that's worse than many people's lowest, worst case scenario expectations. not good.

@Equinox the Wii U is the second best home console in the Japanese market and look how that panned out for Nintendo. I'm so glad that I bought myself a PS4 Slim, I love Nintendo, but no offence, if the majority of third parties are going to Sony then that's where I want to be. I want the widest variety of games available to me.

"The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards." - Nvidia. October, 2016.
This could only be Maxwell if they were talking about Geforce cards in general as being top-performing. Unless they were talking about Pascal, it was misleading...
This is disappointing since Maxwell generates more heat and uses more power per core.

Nintendo really should market this as a portable device. Marketing it as a home console is a mistake.

@KirbyTheVampire There's no reason why a handheld couldn't be connected to a TV as long as it remains handheld.
A hybrid like the Switch does not remain handheld when in home console mode because it has to remain in the dock.

That doesn't sound good, but I am not that good at math either... We will see when the console releases.

Look at all the doom sayers here. I mean seriously people let's be real here. If Switch really was that weak I don't think third parties would be as positive about as they have been. Also there is the chance this info could be based off early development kits. I think it's basically impossible to make Switch less powerful than an actual shield since unlike a Shield it doesn't have to deal with a power sucking OS and such.

Power might not be as much of an issue this time if the rumors are true that porting to Switch is a breeze

Alright, settle down, people. It's a rumour, and it's proven to be false. I'll post the link to the article that counterarguments this nonsense.

Lol, people just wait till januari.

@Azooooz good could you show us the link?

I'll start paying attention to these reports when they stop being blatantly wrong even about the most trivial aspects: you don't need fixed CPU speed to have consistent "simulation speed". Different CPU speed handling is a very, very old problem that's been solved for decades.

Hint: Most CPUs have different speeds depending on power source, thermal state and work load and we manage that just fine.

If it's true, that's a pity. I'm still gonna get it for Nintendo games of course, but it would be great to have full 3rd party support too.

I still think they can upgrade the tablet part ever two years at a cheap cost. I don't see why not. People do it with apple products all the time.

@exDeveloper I believe they meant that it would not be ideal if the frame rate was lowered because of power saving CPU downclocking during long play sessions.

@Wolfgabe Not exactly an article, but there are evidences that prove the venturebeat's claim wrong that Switch's processor is last gen (Maxwell), which is the reason that Eurogamer started this article. Here's the link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5inxxk/why_the_maxwell_rumours_are_incredibly_stupid_big//

@Azooooz I don't see anything in that post disproving anything. The poster just seems to point out that it would not be the best choice for various reasons. Even Microsoft uses the older Maxwell architecture in their big new Surface computer. Apple is also using Intel's older architecture in the newest Macbook Pros, because that class is not yet released. Tegra X2 is also not released. We will have to wait and see.

@Blueberry Check also the comments in the article. It's interesting that most of them are actually chip engineers that agree with the OP.

@joealejos no it would run 150% faster when docked.

Everyone should keep in mind that Eurogamer loves to sell bad news, or potential bad news, about Nintendo. If they have a suspicion about something negative about the Switch, they'll be sure to let everyone know. That doesn't necessarily mean this rumor is false, but take it with a grain of salt. It's just another rumor in the sea of Switch rumors, many of which contradict each other. We'll see for sure what the Switch is capable of in January, and in March when people take the Switch apart and lay out the exact specs for everyone to see.

Also keep in mind that hardware is not the only factor in 3rd party support. It also comes down to sales, how easy it is to make/port games to/from the system, among other things. Remember that the Wii U had solid 3rd party support at launch, but it swiftly dropped off after people stopped buying the Wii U. This is a system that is much more powerful than the Wii U, is much easier to make games for/port games to than the Wii U, and is almost certain to sell more. Don't give up hope just yet. We might not see some of the major, blockbuster AAA titles, but we'll be getting exclusives and everything else in between, assuming the Switch sells well.

I think the fact that Bethesda is so enthusiastic about the system speaks volumes, especially since they flat out laughed at the Wii U.

@Moshugan I agree, although I'm sure a good number of people don't have an X1 or a PS4. I think it's great that Nintendo continues to fill its own niche instead of going toe-to-toe with the big dogs, and that they value innovation and preservation of their own IPs instead of looking at market data and following trends to make the most profit.

Personally, I love my PS4, but I simply don't have the time to sit at home and play ANYTHING, so lately I've been all about the handhelds. I think the Switch is everything the Wii U shoulda been and I can't wait to pick one up, if only for the first party titles.

@Azooooz Good article that gives a lot of insight into the chip manufacturing process. Goes to show why you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet especially rumors.

@Azooooz I think you're getting away from the point that is the focus of this article, which skips past the debate over which chip is being used fairly quickly, and focuses on the clock speeds available when docked/undocked, which appears to have been confirmed.

This sounds worrying. I'm concerned that there could be plenty of 3rd party games that'll run horribly unless it's docked, making portable mode almost unplayable. I'm hoping this rumour isn't true

I'm so tired of all this. Nvidia's CEO confirmed that PC/XB1/PS4 games will port to the Switch easily. Some speculative gossip about the specs of the device comes in trying to disguise itself as real news, and now we have doubts? Come on! And, are we seriously going to calculate the future of this console by speculating on blue prints? Why can't we just wait to see what's on hand, in January? I mean, shouldn't the software momentum tell the biggest story. I'm not proud of my gaming nation right now.

@Syrek24 how about because Eurogamer have been spot on so far with switch rumors.

Why shouldn't we put our faith in them. Until you prove them wrong I will believe then thanks.

Something's missing here. Things just aren't adding up. This device was shown running Skyrim. Then there was that absolutely jaw dropping trailer of Seasons of Heaven. How are these specs so low?

I really hope this isn't true for Nintendo's sake. What I'm hoping is Nintendo created a dev kit with the X1 because they knew there would be leaks. After all, it seems all of these leaks are coming from third party devs, not from within Nintendo. I mean, up to this point, Nintendo has maintained the element of surprise- no one saw the Switch coming. Maybe they do it again with the reveal

I would have thought that people who were quick to shoot down Eurogamer when the first rumors came out would have learned their lesson by now. Keep drinking that super metal Dave cool aid while the rest of us live in the real world

@FatAlbert1 Pre-recorded footage is very different from live gameplay.

Also, everyone saw the Switch coming. We didn't know the specifics, but everyone knew it existed.

@KirbyTheVampire "Anyone who's more hardware savvy than me have any idea what this means for those big AAA games we were all hoping could end up on the Switch?"

It means nothing, dude. It's just more irrelevant speculative gossip, though the media wants you to think it isn't. As for ports, Nvidia's CEO has already confirmed that games from PC/XB1/PS4 can be easily ported to the Switch. He (the CEO) stated that to the public, not venturebeat or some other source. Doesn't get more relevant than that, so don't worry about ports, for now anyway.

I'll take this rumour indifferently as

A) we don't yet know how these numbers relate to the architecture of the hardware,

B) Nintendo could still release a so-called 'pro' model that uses an X2 or something entirely different, and

C) the fact the games won't be running off of physical media has a big say in the performance - particularly as the hardware and software will be optimised for it.

@Yorumi It's true what you say about the first party content, but first party content alone does not sell a system to the masses. Many people don't like Nintendo games, but a lot of people will be looking at this as a way to play mainstream games on a portable device. If that doesn't happen and all we get is Nintendo games, they'll lose interest in a heartbeat. Of course, I'm very confident that we'll be getting much better 3rd party support than the Wii U had, assuming the system sells well. The main concern is getting games akin to Prey and The Witcher 3. Those games are true system sellers, and are something Nintendo gamers usually never get to experience.

But aside from that, I think the main concern in this case is how well the system runs in handheld mode. I don't entirely understand these concerns, since we saw Breath of the Wild running beautifully in handheld mode, which is definitely a big deal, since the footage of the Wii U playing the game showed the Wii U chugging along painfully, especially at certain points in the video. (The Wii U struggling to run it could change as the game approaches release, though)

@Yorumi first of all we don't know which version of DQXI the switch will have. After seeing these rumors I am kinda worried it won't the be PS4 version.

Yes you are correct that as a portable th switch is great. Hell I was hyped for DQ, Zelda and Skyrim on the go gameplay but after seeing these rumors of the performance suffering when undocked I am now bit worried.

We need to see these games running when undocked. If the performance is shoddy then what incentive is there to play the switch on the go?

@Yorumi I hear ya. Getting hard to see what's in front of us these days, with the media constantly misdirecting our attention. It shouldn't be hard to comprehend that Nintendo, learning a keen lesson from their current struggling home console, isn't likely to repeat it's blunders.

@kobashi100 If you want to see the game running while undocked, I recommend watching this video. Skip to 7:25. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TJ7IUNWGl4&feature=youtu.be

@yomanation We haven't heard anything because no one is allowed to say anything.

@Moshugan mobile phones are working on 1080P and just doing fine. For them i guess it's cheaper instead giving the 1080P. That's how i feel

@SanderEvers your feeble corrections are no mat... oh wait

Well... I guess once we start tearing the thing down, we'll find out if this is a modified Tegra X1 or the like. Definitely disappointing about not making it in time for Pascal- this severely weakens the Sandwitch's chances of competing with the PS4 and XB1, much less PS4Pro and XBScorpio. However, it's still a big boost up from the likes of the Vita.

I'm very skeptical about the technical specifics described here. You cannot nerf the overall performance of a device by half or more just by under clocking it. It doesn't work that way. There is always a minimum threshold of performance, and optimal clock ranges that cannot be deviated from without forcing the processor to shut down. The only CPU's that have such a wide clock range are ones designed for massive over clocking, like the AMD FX-8350. However, GPU's are rarely ever designed for wide clock thresholds- they usually must stay within about a 10-300 MHz optimal range, and it's rare to see any more than a 100 MHz range on any GPU. There aren't any CPU's or GPU's out there designed for intensionally intensive underclocking. Mobile processors in particular, including the Tegra X1, were never designed for such a purpose. It just doesn't make sense from a technical perspective. The closest thing I can think of to replicating this is intentional bottlenecking, but again, that doesn't make any sense, especially not for a mobile device.

I would take this report with a massive pile of salt. We have no confirmation on whether VentureBeat's sources are technically inclined or not. But I will reiterate, as a computer refurbisher by trade, that the claims made by this report do not make any reasonable sense to me.

Hope these rumours arn't true but I suspect they are. Nintendo just simply don't learn a handheld priced to high will simply not sell which is what this is it was proven when the 3DS launched. Trying to cover over the cracks that they have dropped out of the home console business and advertising this as a hybrid is a bad move.

@kobashi100 DQXI on Switch is it's own version, built only for Switch.

@Yorumi
Nintendo fans don't live in a bubble sealed from the outside world.We've seen what happened with the Wii U and can understand that there might not be another chance for N in the hardware department if the Switch fails to sell.My concerns,and I guess this goes for the majority in here,is for a situation to not repeat itself.Hardcore Nintendo fans are not enough to support a system and it needs to be popular enough and appealing to both third party developers and gamers that don't usually care or left Nintendo's systems.Everybody in here knows how capable are Nintendo's first party studios that can make any given hardware sing,but it is the bigger picture we need to see in order to understand the stakes for Nintendo.This comes from the warmest place in my heart,I just want Nintendo to succeed,but to do so they have to adapt in an ever evolving,trend-wise and technological,world.

6 x the power of a Vita is awesome as a handheld. But when Nintendo are marketing this as a home console it doesn't sound as impressive.

With Nintendo marketing this as a home console you have to expect to be compared to PS4 and Xbox one. This is where the switch as a console will suffer.

@diwdiws incorrect, we already know the third-party support will significantly stronger than on the Wii U. We know Nvidia has designed the system with PS4/Xbox One support in mind. We already have two current gen ports more or less confirmed; Skyrim Remastered and NBA 2K17. A Dark Souls trilogy is also heavily rumoured.

@Yorumi I think the concern has more to do with third-party support than visual upgrades. This is completely understandable after what happened with the Wii U - there were many mistakes with that system, but one of the biggest was not opting for developer-friendly hardware.

It's obviously great news that Nintendo are invested in up-to-date architecture, but we still don't know what compromises will be made when porting to Switch, and how these affect the studio's financial return.

If the transition is straightforward and developers are on board, then I personally wouldn't care a lot of first-party games looked akin to Wii U.

@PlywoodStick It hasn't been confirmed that it's not Pascal. Many would argue that it would be absurd for it to not be Pascal, seeing as it's cheaper to manufacture, has better cooling, ect ect.

@wizzgamer This rumor isn't about the price...

What I want to see,is a product that is so sleek and appealing,that specs will take the back seat to the eyes of the consumers,kind like the Apple devices.It can be done if it ticks enough boxes,so far its momentum looks promising,but the Wii U has left too big of a scar to be ignored.

Won't a 60% drop in undocked mode affect things like framerate, number of assets on screen etc etc...

Of course "Breath of the Wild" runs smoother on Switch in Handheld-mode than on the Wii U at about half the clockspeed of the GPU! Something seems fishy! :/

@Billsama judging from these comments I think that's exactly what they want.

@joealejos
I think you mean 250% as fast when docked.

@Yorumi To downplay Ubisoft's/EA's role in the gaming industry is basically just hiding your eyes from the truth. I've heard a lot of positive things about Battlefield One and Titanfall 2, not to mention their sports games, which would be huge system sellers. I'm not saying you have to enjoy those games or EA/Ubisoft as a whole, but having them on board would be such a great thing to give people an incentive to buy the Switch. Bad company or not, their games sell, and the more 3rd party support the Switch has, the better, especially from the likes of EA.

This rumor, even if true, has zero affect on my purchasing decision. I care nothing for these silly power games, I was sold on concept alone. The response from devs has been positive, and only time will tell if they'll put their IPs where their talking heads are. What's the point of this rumor?

Ah hah, I thought something was off. This report keeps shifting back and forth on it's descriptions, such as saying that "CPU clocks are halved compared to the standard Tegra X1." Take a look at these:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9289/the-nvidia-shield-android-tv-review/2

http://www.androidauthority.com/lpddr4-everything-need-know-599759/

http://www.androidauthority.com/nvidia-tegra-x1-closer-look-578075/

Based on the NVIDIA Shield Android TV, the gist of what I want to point out here is that the CPU cores on the Tegra X1 use multiple "little" and "big" cores, which are clocked at slightly different rates. The high performance big cores (A57) are clocked at about 2 GHz, not at about 1 GHz like this Eurogamer report says, and the high efficiency little cores (A53) are not known for some reason. (The NVIDIA site for the Tegra X1 doesn't even officially acknowledge the little A53 cores for some reason.) In any case, the Tegra X1 has an 8-core CPU. It's generally not intended for wide over- or under-clocking ranges.

The Tegra X1 memory clock is indeed at about 1600 MHz, but it uses high performance LPDDR4-3200. This is fairly recent stuff- you can't kill performance by that much by underclocking it by a couple hundred MHz. There's no reason to do so unless your battery is low, though- this type of memory is intended to run on mobile devices at this clock rate. So I'm very skeptical about the overall memory clock in the Sandwitch being underclocked by default from the standard ratings when undocked, and I'm even more skeptical about the overall memory performance being highly affected by being docked or not. The Sandwitch might use less than the 3GB used in the NVIDIA Shield Android TV, but that should be the only potential major difference.

The Tegra X1 GPU clock is indeed at about 1000 MHz, but like the memory, it's not intended to be under- or over-clocked to such a high degree as nearly 700 MHz. That's ridiculous- there aren't any mobile GPU's meant to do that to such a great degree. Maybe by a couple hundred MHz to save power, if the battery is getting low, but not so much as to cripple performance outright. With 256 CUDA cores instead of the 192 used in the Tegra K1, twice the performance and performance per watt of the Tegra K1, and double speed FP16 (floating point 16-bit?) operations, this would make the Sandwitch no slouch for a portable device.

The only thing that makes sense so far is forcing the Sandwitch to lower it's output to 720p when undocked, so less power is used than when it's docked with a constant power source. However, the Tegra X1 itself has no trouble outputting 1080p, so the Sandwitch wouldn't technically have any trouble with that either. No alteration of specs parameters would be required to make that happen. In fact, the specs allow for up to 2160p @ 60Hz output, so that may actually be possible when it's docked with a constant power source. (Although I suspect some mods will be required to unlock that capability.)

If you ask me, I believe that the impact of the Sandwitch being docked or not is being completely overblown here. Overall, if the Sandwitch performs near where the NVIDIA Shield Android TV does, then we have quite the nice piece of kit on our hands. It's a huge improvement over the Wii U, and it's portable.

It's the waiting game too see what this system can really do, we all know that the Nintendo games is gonna look awesome but what kind of 3rd parties can the Switch get and will it have 3rd party exclusives aswell.

What does it matter? This is mainly a home console anyway. It's just an upgraded(and I mean REALLY upgraded)Wii U. We all have our 3DS for games on the go anyway.

As long as the games run well who cares?

Considering how much power is needed to go 1080p instead of 720p, I'm not worried. I could get a $30 graphics card and play the newest games in 720p (something I've thought about doing, since I currently have no graphics card in my PC). My only concern is that it sounds like it will take some extra work on the developer's part to make everything go smoothly.

Again, January 12th will answer all questions. If this turns out to be true, ask yourselves, do you even care?

I am all for having more power but it won't matter, I'm still buying the Switch and I WILL ALWAYS BUY NINTENDO HARDWARE, been gaming since the OG NES in 1985 and Mario and the rest of the cast are just a must have NO MATTER WHAT.

I also need METROID in my life, that game and Castlevania are my two favorite game franchises.

@yomanation This is informing no one. It's useless speculation, even for people who care about the specs.

Oh Ho! Now it's getting interesting.

It would be nice if Nintendo could work with companies like CAPCOM and I hate to say it but KONAMI to obtain some of those IP's that were synonymous with Nintendo, namely franchises that have been lost in the fray like MEGAMAN, it belongs on Nintendo platforms, Castlevania, that also belongs on Nintendo platforms.... I would like to see a resurgence of these classic games on the Nintendo platforms.... Give us GRADIUS, GHOSTS N GOBLINS, LIFE FORCE etc. etc. etc.... I don't care if the are 2D , we need 2D gaming back, it's a lost art form.

@yomanation Like I pointed out in my second comment, it doesn't make any sense to design the Sandwitch's version of the Tegra X1 to do that. It's not intended to do that in the NVIDIA Shield Android TV, and the main component for that device is about the size of a tablet. The only real difference docking the device would realistically make is to supply a constant power source, and maybe some cooling. The dock itself is not likely to supply extra processing power to the mobile device itself.

I don't know where the idea for killing the clock rate of a GPU by nearly 700 MHz is coming from. That doesn't make any sense, no high performance GPU (especially not a mobile GPU) is intended for shifting between clock rates to such a great degree. Maybe it could support underclocking by about 200 MHz tops when the battery is low... I think that claim made by the VentureBeat sources is bogus. We don't know if those sources are even technically inclined enough to understand how little sense it makes to design a GPU's clock to adjust between nearly 30-100% of it's standard spec, based on whether it's connected to a constant power source. It doesn't make sense to underclock the GPU by default to almost 2/3 of the base spec, either- the GPU is designed to hold up in a mobile device at base spec.

On the bright side,and in line with Yorumi's and others' comments,I've never really expected much 3rd party support.With the portable and home console 1st party teams unified,I am sure they can provide enough high quality software for the system's lifetime.But it needs to sell and certain key areas cannot be ignored.Price is one for sure,digital content tied to accounts not hardware,lose on the restrictions they apply to communicating with friends,voice chat,steady stream of VC games,no region locking.Things we have been talking about for so long.

@Yorumi The average consumer doesn't know about EA/Ubisoft and their evils. They only know that they make games that they enjoy. A lot of heads would be turned at portable Battlefield/Titanfall/Fifa/Madden/NBA 2K ect ect. It's true that there are other platforms to play those games on, but every person that buys a PS4/Xbone to play them is one more person that potentially didn't buy a Switch. After all, not everyone likes Mario and Zelda. If they don't get games they want on that cool hybrid system, AKA the Switch, they'll settle for a regular console.

I agree that Nintendo makes great games, perhaps better than anyone else in the industry, but the Wii U is an example of a system that had terrible third party support and pretty much only first party games, and look how that turned out.

@Yorumi I didn't say that they're the only 3rd party devs, but they're definitely two of the largest companies, and if their games are what's selling, they should be on the Switch. It's not a necessity, but it would be a big help. Surely you can agree with me on that.

@Alucard83 #149 "mobile phones are working on 1080P and just doing fine. For them i guess it's cheaper instead giving the 1080P. That's how i feel"

Yup, it's a matter of cost efficiency.
Sure, they could have the most powerful mobile device if they'd want, but let's compare prices...

A couple popular mobile devices that outperform Tegra X1 by a lot are iPhone 7, iPad Pro (2015) and Google Pixel C tablet.

~ Google Pixel C is priced at $499 and $599.
~ iPhone 7 is a whopping $649 and $769...
~ And the iPad Pro 2015 is a nibelsnarfing $799 and $1079!

Meanwhile the Switch will probably attempt to hit the $250 to $300 price range. The cheapest one I listed, Pixel C, doubles the supposed Switch price!

@yomanation You're right, the problem of overheating is the only real potential problem here. In which case, if that is the reason, would be due to Nintendo's poor engineering based around modern tech. They're so used to working with low spec devices, which includes the (New) 3DS at this point, that they may have no idea how to design a (portable) product to work with newer tech without gimping it. If that turns out to be true, that would be really pathetic. I hope it's not true.

Surprise surprise, it won't be a portable Ps4 with 6 hours of battery life. Haha it'll still be more powerful than Wii U on the go, which means the floor is essentially gorgeous games like Mario Kart 8. If you only own Nintendo consoles, this is probably bad news. But if you already have some other higher-spec gaming system for all the multiplats and are looking for a very high quality Nintendo system with tons of fantastic games, this is for you. As we kinda knew all along

@Yorumi

Nintendo has done more than their fair share to bring down the industry. They may not be as bad as EA, Activision or Ubisoft, but they're not far behind.

The real tragedy is that Nintendo, with all of their first party IPs, could totally dominate the entire gaming market if they just stopped volunteering to be the red-headed step child.

@DarthNocturnal But if you save your game data to the game cartridge itself, you don't have to put as much data in the console's drive or SD card.

@Yorumi Agreed, Nintendo is better off having their engineers collaborate with NVIDIA's, but leaving the heavy lifting (so to speak) to NVIDIA. They can't have such a commanding role like they did with the Digital Media Professionals Pica200, where they commissioned a smaller, almost unknown company to design the 3DS GPU to Nintendo's liking. Nintendo must trade off some control, with as big of a company as NVIDIA is, if not just designing with their OEM specifications as a base.

And yeah, VentureBeat is a high-falutin' tech blog created by some ex- Wall Street Journal mainstream media correspondent, along with a bunch of venture capitalist interests. They're not a real nuts and bolts tech industry analysis and review site, like Anandtech, 3DGuru, Hardware Canucks, Tom's Hardware, Maximum PC (got merged into PCGamer), Extreme Tech, etc.

@PlywoodStick How is overheating the only potential problem? What about battery life?

@strongest_link

These are based on the Tegra K1, but the X1 has twice the performance/watt, so it's not too much different from these results:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-shield-tablet-controller,3949-16.html

https://shield.nvidia.com/blog/shieldbattery

If you REALLY push the hardware with some difficult benchmarks, you could wear out the battery for something like the NVIDIA Shield Tablet in 2 hours. However, by adjusting some settings, and ensuring your programs aren't running like stress tests, you can easily pull off about 4-5 hours playing games like Skyrim. So the real world battery life range is not that much different from the 3DS default battery's life. I don't think the NS will have any major problems with battery life.

@PlywoodStick Okay, point taken. But I would still argue that there is value in having better than 4-5 hours of battery life. I mean, the 3DS isn't the greatest standard to measure battery life against...

@yomanation I guess modifying the specs downward to work primarily as a step up from the 3DS wouldn't necessarily hurt it in the portable space, but it definitely would hurt it's chances of getting concurrent 3rd party titles along with the x86 systems.

@Yorumi You're really blowing what I'm saying way out of proportion, lol. You seem to take me for some rabid EA fan, when meanwhile I've never bought an EA game in my life. I never said everyone would abandon the PS4, or that EA is the only company that matters. They're just another part of what is called "a system with good 3rd party support". It could absolutely have good 3rd party support without them, though. I never said it absolutely needed them or else the Switch was doomed. It's like you have such a bad taste in your mouth from EA fans that you're determined to label anyone who says "EA support would help the system" as an EA fanboy.

Besides, this isn't about how they treat their customers or anything like that. I'm not defending them in that regard. They just produce games that people like and would help sell people on the Switch. That's literally all I'm saying. The key word here is "help". Not "Ermagerness ninentdo neds ea or else swtch diez"

I think I'll just wait for the January event. Probably not a good idea to jump to conclusions until then.

Well you would seriously hope that it drops it output. Rendering a 7 inch screen should be substantially easier than rendering a 50 inch flat screen tele in 1080p

1080p has actually 2,25x the amount of pixels of 720p, so the performance should roughly stay the same when switching from TV to tablet.

Whatever the Switch turns out to be, if it gets ports of Towerfall Ascension and Rocket League, I'm buying it day one.

Its going to be one powerfully cheap gaming tablet. Everyone seems to still be missing that point.

The market absolutely does not need another ps4 or xbox, those markets are well stitched up, ask yourself why would nintendo even try to compete with those 2? Gaming isnt just about polygons per second, nintendo has proven that time and time again as they will with the switch.

Stop doomsaying internet!

@Yorumi i like your comments mate. Reasonable and not leaping to illogical fear-based conclusions as too many seem to do on here.

@yomanation well said. I fail to see the negativity to the switch's approach. I dont believe that games will be hobbled in mobile mode, battery life will simply be prolonged buly not wasting energy outputting a resolution that isnt required on a 7 inch screen! This is actually good news!

this is because nintendo wants to have the edge in price. they know nintendo fans cry a lot about prices and refuse to save their own money or get 2 jobs to make ends meet so they can afford to support their hobby so they cut back on technology in order to make things cheaper so they dont have to hear kids cry about pricing.
thats the bottom line.

Specs, graphics, CPU, GPU,confirmation, PS4, X1, Maxwell, Pascal anonymous sources.

You lot will drive yourself nuts over these unending streams of rumours compiled upon rumours reported 2nd hand from sites with unnamed sources essentially guessing what it means for the software it will receive. It really isn't that long until the next Nintendo Switch showcase, ultimately that's the earliest we'll see how all this tech will perform in practice.

If you know anything about tech and power requirements to push hardware to the limit, then this was quite obvious from the very start. It was a trade off, you can either have a full powered portable device but then it will run out of power in like 1hr, and that isn't going to work for something we want to play on the go. So some of the power has to be sacrificed to give us more time to play and stretch the batterys life out.

@bolt05
Yes, I agree with your opinion. Forget all AAA adult Western games on Ultra HD. Just use old formula, Games that can be played together by Everyone. Nintendo will prove it once again.

I'll be buying it either way but if they cheaped out and the console while docked is not even remotely close to XB1 then they will get the disaster they asked for. It will probably struggle to do even Wii U numbers if this is yet another Nintendo console that is too under-powered to get 3rd party developers interested.

One other thing, I wouldn't worry about the power this system has at launch at all. Because I have a feeling that nintendo has some tricks up its sleeve, in the form of attachments that hook into the dock and give it extra gpu/cpu power, but it would be a expensive addon that only some 3rd party games would require, think of it like the Switch+. That way nintendo can hit the casual market with a base version Switch, and the pro gamers can get the Switch+ attachment to have a more powerful machine.

Having done a Google search and some math, here is how things would work out in terms of computational power.

Case 1: 2 SM
Docked: 384 GFLOP FP32 or 768 GFLOP FP16
Undocked: 154 GFLOP FP32 or 308 GFLOP FP16

Case 2: 3 SM
Docked: 576 GFLOP FP32 or 1152 GFLOP FP16
Undocked: 230 GFLOP FP32 or 460 GFLOP FP16

Case 3: 4 SM
Docked: 768 GFLOP FP32 or 1536 GFLOP FP16
Undocked: 307 GFLOP FP32 or 614 GFLOP FP16

If we assume 2 SMs are being used (since that would be the "Nintendo" way of being underpowered, as many would suggest), then no fan is needed for active cooling in the Switch tablet itself unless the Switch is either really, REALLY poorly designed or if Nintendo is just throwing in a useless fan to waste money.

In other words, clock frequencies alone tell us very little about the Switch's performance. The SM count is needed to extract meaningful information from this report.

@Detriment-hip-ho and what else? Any news of current upcoming AAA games coming? Seems like all those announced are
Old games that aren't really that graphically intensive

Guys, it's called a rumor for a reason. Several parts of the "leak", most notably using a proven-false VentureBeat article as a second source, raise red flags. I don't think this leak is accurate.
And even if it is accurate, most people seeing this leak don't understand tech enough to form any opinion on these specs. Wait until January, guys, and see what this system is capable of running.

pulls out calculator that's what i thought. 1080 resolutions has over 2 million pixels, while 720 resolutions has less than 1 million. That would match up to the clock speeds differences.

@PlywoodStick I think you should read this: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_26269.html

"Power consumption is directly proportional to clock frequency, so the lower the frequency of the GPU, the less power is consumed. NVIDIA designed the GPU to run at frequencies as low as 100 MHz during the Win-Idle state, which lowers the
typical power consumption."

They were already able to scale to 100 MHz in 2008.

This was the series they were talking about, you can see that the base clock was much more than 100 MHz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_series

People who say they don't care because they will run it primarily docked anyway...that misses the point of this thing considering the handheld mode of it is what must shine for anyone who can weigh options and see that PS4 will beat it for value (yes, there's the first party loyalty part to think of, but then again Nintendo totally dropped the ball and bailed on Wii U, gave 3DS far better nods and quality for the money invested, etc. - that's not being loyal to their console fans so don't let them do it to you again).

Of course Japan will buy it, but that's a given. For the rest of us, this thing better have well developed third party games that have equal performance in handheld mode or it will be a low seller overall. I don't even trust that Nintendo isn't going to put out a true 3DS successor in a couple more years, leaving the Switch forgotten already if it isn't a giant day one hit.

@Mister_Wu That was pertaining to discrete boards on a PC, not system on chips on a mobile device. You usually have to put a mobile device into sleep mode to activate idle mode for the processors. Otherwise, it's considered active, since a SoC handles more than just discrete graphics. The GPU cores themselves can be passively underclocked while you're not running any games, that's true. But I doubt that would be the case while running a game, which is the insinuation of the sources in the VentureBeat article.

The key in that link you posted is that it is describing the power consumption and clock rate while a GPU is idling, and not actively running any programs that need graphics processing. Realistically, graphics manufacturers don't allow their GPU clock rates to fluctuate by such a wide range while active, to prevent instability issue. Fluctuating by up to 700 MHz while active is practically unheard of. The OEM makes from NVIDIA are the same way.

This is powerful for a handheld especially from Nintendo as I would expect it to be only slightly more powerful than the Vita with it been a Nintendo handheld. But a cause for concern is incredibly poor advertising from Nintendo with them saying it's a hybrid which it is not they have just moved their home console games to this new handheld. Another concern is the price it needs to be low as look what happened with the 3DS when that launched. at a high price.

As always, can expect a mountain of negativity and doom sayers in these comment sections. It's like I'm on IGN again.

@ KirbyTheVampire I never said this article was about the price just saying that if it's an over priced handheld it wont sell another problem is confusing consumers by calling it a hybrid.

In the first chapter of the history of the internet it states, "And thus the rumors surfaced and were taken as word of God."

Reading this with my trusty salt lick as "It's not as powerful as XBONE (as expected), so it's a Nintendo console alright."

Which... does not surprise me. Carry on.

@ballistic90 @Kyosaii it doesnt scale like that. Resolution is not that GPU intensive. You also have to take into account lighting, shadows, draw, post processing effects, these are the one who hog the GPU

A sad fate could await the Switch if this is true, and given that such a massive chunk of the rumours to date have been accurate it's something to fear. We can't even rely on Nintendo first part support either because once the system starts struggling badly they just withhold their best titles for a future system and expect us to survive on the fumes of a dying console.

Some will do it for the Switch, I know I will, but if a similar scenario with the Wii U happens it will absolutely shatter customer confidence in the company.

@westman98 The Tegra X1 has 2 SM's, 512 FP32 GFLOP's at peak, and 1024 FP16 GFLOP's at peak. Whether it's docked or not, that doesn't affect the specs capabilities directly by itself. The output would be lowered when not docked to save energy and generate less heat, and brought back to normal when docked with a constant power source and (I'm assuming) additional cooling.

@PlywoodStick I think you should read this review to see how nVidia GPUs can change clock when not connected to an external power source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-ROG-Strix-GL502VM-Notebook-Review.187341.0.html

"While plugged in, the CPU operated at 2.7 to 2.8 GHz. The GPU runs at 1400 MHz. While on battery, the GPU drops to 900 MHz. The CPU jumps between 800 MHz and 3.1 GHz."

And with Maxwell, the situation is no different: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y900-17ISK-Notebook-Review.174445.0.html

"Running on battery power will throttle both CPU and GPU performances. A 3DMark 11 run on batteries returns Physics and Graphics scores of 9148 and 6236 points, respectively, compared to 10418 and 13168 points when on mains.

Turbo Mode can only be activated when the system is connected to a power outlet."

@Mister_Wu The first quote is pertaining to the use of intensive discrete graphics stress test programs, which are designed to be able to shift the GPU cores between idle and active. Also, those stress test programs are designed for a PC, not a mobile device.

Regardless, what happens during a benchmark is not necessarily what would actually happen while you're playing a game. You can use a program like HWMonitor before and after running a graphics intensive game to test that out. Once an intensive program is running, neither the CPU or GPU are going to widely fluctuate, to prevent instability issues.

Those throttling instances pertain to a laptop in particular, but it's still a PC. And of course, since we're talking about a PC, that means any proprietary default settings can be overrided at will with the relevant changes in the power options. So those fluctuations in the benchmark readings in the second quote actually depend on the power options settings, not just whether it's running on the battery or power outlet.

Those power options capabilities are not likely to be an officially approved option with the NS, although the reasoning is similar. The Tegra X1 has the same capabilities regardless of whether the device it's on is plugged in or not. It's likely to be set up by default to use a lower output setting to save energy while not docked and/or not playing a game, but the clock rates while active could potentially be set the same or close to that, regardless of being docked. (I suspect modders will uncover more information about this.)

The text below is from this source w/ regards to the SM: Source

Case 1: 2 SMs - Docked: 384 GF FP32 / 768 GF FP16 - Portable: 153.6 GF FP32 / 307.2 GF FP16

I had generally been assuming that 2 SMs was the most likely configuration (as, I believe, had most people), simply on the basis of allowing for the smallest possible SoC which could meet Nintendo's performance goals. I'm not quite so sure now, for a number of reasons.[/em]

Firstly, if Nintendo were to use these clocks with a 2 SM configuration (assuming 20nm), then why bother with active cooling? The Pixel C runs a passively cooled TX1, and although people will be quick to point out that Pixel C throttles its GPU clocks while running for a prolonged time due to heat output, there are a few things to be aware of with Pixel C. Firstly, there's a quad-core A57 CPU cluster at 1.9GHz running alongside it, which on 20nm will consume a whopping 7.39W when fully clocked. Switch's CPU might be expected to only consume around 1.5W, by comparison. Secondly, although I haven't been able to find any decent analysis of Pixel C's GPU throttling, the mentions of it I have found indicate that, although it does throttle, the drop in performance is relatively small, and as it's clocked about 100MHz above Switch to begin with it may only be throttling down to a 750MHz clock or so even under prolonged workloads. There is of course the fact that Pixel C has an aluminium body to allow for easier thermal dissipation, but it likely would have been cheaper (and mechanically much simpler) for Nintendo to adopt the same approach, rather than active cooling.

Alternatively, we can think of it a different way. If Switch has active cooling, then why clock so low? Again assuming 20nm, we know that a full 1GHz clock shouldn't be a problem for active cooling, even with a very small quiet fan, given the Shield TV (which, again, uses a much more power-hungry CPU than Switch). Furthermore, if they wanted a 2.5x ratio between the two clock speeds, that would give a 400MHz clock in portable mode. We know that the TX1, with 2 SMs on 20nm, consumes 1.51W (GPU only) when clocked at about 500MHz. Even assuming that that's a favourable demo for the TX1, at 20% lower clock speed I would be surprised if a 400MHz 2 SM GPU would consume any more than 1.5W. That's obviously well within the bounds for passive cooling, but even being very conservative with battery consumption it shouldn't be an issue. The savings from going from 400MHz to 300MHz would perhaps only increase battery life by about 5-10% tops, which makes it puzzling why they'd turn down the extra performance.

Finally, the recently published Switch patent application actually explicitly talks about running the fan at a lower RPM while in portable mode, and doesn't even mention the possibility of turning it off while running in portable mode. A 2 SM 20nm Maxwell GPU at ~300MHz shouldn't require a fan at all, and although it's possible that they've changed their mind since filing the patent in June, it begs the question of why they would even consider running the fan in portable mode if their target performance was anywhere near this.

Case 2: 3 SMs - Docked: 576 GF FP32 / 1,152 GF FP16 - Portable: 230.4 GF FP32 / 460.8 GF FP16

This is a bit closer to the performance level we've been led to expect, and it does make a little bit of sense from the perspective of giving a little bit over TX1 performance at lower power consumption. (It also matches reports of overclocked TX1s in early dev kits, as you'd need to clock a bit over the standard 1GHz to reach docked performance here.) Active cooling while docked makes sense for a 3 SM GPU at 768MHz, although wouldn't be needed in portable mode. It still leaves the question of why not use 1GHz/400MHz clocks, as even with 3 SMs they should be able to get by with passive cooling at 400MHz, and battery consumption shouldn't be that much of an issue.

Case 3: 4 SMs - Docked: 768 GF FP32 / 1,536 GF FP16 - Portable: 307.2 GF FP32 / 614.4 GF FP16

This would be on the upper limit of what's been expected, performance wise, and the clock speeds start to make more sense at this point, as portable power consumption for the GPU would be around the 2W mark, so further clock increases may start to effect battery life a bit too much (not that 400-500MHz would be impossible from that point of view, though). Active cooling would be necessary in docked mode, but still shouldn't be needed in portable mode (except perhaps if they go with a beefier CPU config than expected).

Case 4: More than 4 SMs

I'd consider this pretty unlikely, but just from the point of view of "what would you have to do to actually need active cooling in portable mode at these clocks", something like 6 SMs would probably do it (1.15 TF FP32/2.3 TF FP16 docked, 460 GF FP32/920 GF FP16 portable), but I wouldn't count on that. For one, it's well beyond the performance levels that reliable-so-far journalists have told us to expect, but it would also require a much larger die than would be typical for a portable device like this (still much smaller than PS4/XBO SoCs, but that's a very different situation).

I really am starting to hate Eurogamer. They take on fact (the clock speed) and write a hold article insinuating that the worst case is fact.

@Malakai So many people want their 15 minutes of fame for spreading rumors like this one. I'm just embarrassed that I even gave it a second thought. For one thing, judging from what footage we've seen of the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild, the Switch version outperformed it on Jimmy Fallon, and even when it was undocked there was no noticeable difference in performance. For another, Todd Howard from Bethesda was clearly impressed by the system. If he saw it being taken out of the dock and the FPS going really downhill, he wouldn't have said this:

“I love it. I got to play it. I will tell you — well, maybe that's an [non-disclosure agreement] thing. One of the best demos I've ever seen. Probably the best demo I've ever seen. At E3."

This whole rumor is a load of garbage. Heck, we've seen the Switch running perfectly fine with our own eyes. It's just another rumor in the Switch rumor cesspool.

@KirbyTheVampire Here is the other thing that is striking. When Eurogamer back in Summer reveal the concept of the NX along with the fact that developers were using a basically a overclocked X1 as the dev. kit. If the CPU is a stock X1, the Switch wouldn't need a fan or anytype of active cooling with a lower clockrate and with two SMs. (see Gooogle's Pixel C which had the X1 while being passively cooled at a higher clock rate)

@Malakai Hmm, so to put that in layman's terms, since I'm not super knowledgeable on hardware, that means it may or may not be an X1? Forgive me if I'm reading that completely wrong.

Expect to soon see a lot of reviews for Switch games taking performance dips whilst 'Switched Out' of the home.

@Zadaris "A sad fate could await the Switch if this is true, and given that such a massive chunk of the rumours to date have been accurate it's something to fear. We can't even rely on Nintendo first part support either because once the system starts struggling badly they just withhold their best titles for a future system and expect us to survive on the fumes of a dying console.
Some will do it for the Switch, I know I will, but if a similar scenario with the Wii U happens it will absolutely shatter customer confidence in the company."

Falling right into the media's trap, aren't we? Don't let 'em get to you bruh. If you want some advice, stay away from these articles. It's getting out of hand right now. They're not calling rumors what they are anymore, and it's easy to get confused and off base.

You should focus on enjoying the games you have, while anticipating the Switch's launch lineup, which we know should be stellar. And remember, the only truly credible source for inside info is the horse's mouth.

How is this news? You could already tell by the trailer the framerate dropped SIGNIFICANTLY when undocked. Yes, in the trailer... I can't believe they would show that, but hey, at least they're being honest about it.

@KirbyTheVampire Not sure if you read the whole Eurogamer article but it ends with some positivity.I'm not going to pretend I know what most of what they're talking about from a technical stadpoint means but there is still hope that this will impress.I don't like the way this has been reported,there is an air of negativity throughout that Eurogamer article but they end with them questioning themselves and that there is still things they don't know.They might be spot on with a lot of what they're saying but there seems to be a lot that they don't know.Again,I've not a clue really on tech specs but after reading that,I'm feeling a bit better about the Switch's specs.

@Nassov Do you mean the Switch reveal trailer?If so,that means nothing really as all the footage was edited in.The 2 3rd party games that were shown,Skyrim and NBA may not have even been running on Switch hardware.it was just shown as an example of what we can expect.And even if it was actual Switch footage,it is still early days and will likely improve.As for Zelda on the Jimmy Fallon show,that seemed to be a pretty flawless transition.

Well as all rumors I doubt this is true.
But yeah the gpu is basically a part of what draws stuff on screen so this would really just mean it would run at a lower resolution when not in the dock. For example 1080p on the tv and 720p on the go.

@gatorboi352 On January 12th - Nintendo will fully show us a Quality , Exciting , Innovative System that will be Accessible to all - Online gamers, Local play Gamers, Solo gamers, Offline gamers, with the ability to take anywhere that is easy of developers to use and will outsell the competition because it does what we need it to do .

@PlywoodStick What you're saying cannot be used to claim that the Eurogamer article is wrong. All modern nVidia GPUs are able to acively change clocks while doing a task without causing instability, as the GPU Boost and Battery Boost features show. But here, not even that was claimed, only one clock was shown, with the possibility of clocking the GPU at 307.2 MHz in both handheld and docked mode or clock it higher, at 768 MHz in docked mode. And as the Jimmy Fallon show revealed, the console even pauses itself when changing mode.

Anyway, if you want to know what the X1 can do in terms of power management, see here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/Linux_Low_Power_ELC_SanDiego.pdf

I see no issue with downscaled performance in handheld mode, lower screen resolution, texture resolution and specially shadow resolution and maybe particle density would make it a lot easier to perform in undocked mode, makes the battery last longer, too much detail on a small screen make a lot of details get lost.

People who think this wil negatively impact the games... i doubt it, I think the game just scales down to a 'low' graphic setting instead of normal. Most games in this day and age look great on lower graphic settings as well (still look better on higher) and if you are really concered about your graphics, buy a pc, hook it up to you tv and an Xbox controller and enjoy.

Well the GPU is really just for drawing stuff on screen so it would basically just mean the game would run at half resolution in portable mode. For example:
In dock: 1080p
Out of dock: 720p
But yeah, this is just a rumor. Who knows if this is true or not. My guess is it will be fairly powerful. Nvidia have afte rall put in 500 man years of effort to customize a tegra chip for the Nintendo Switch.
We don't really know witch one but it might not even matter as it might have been customized so much it's not even a bit similar to it's original one.
Anyway here's a game that's been revealed, it uses unreal engine 4 so my guess is the Switch might be able to put out pretty good graphic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExCavQVzNrc

@OorWullie,

Because I am pretty sure Nintendo doesn't want their games to look weaker while the device is undocked. It will look exactly the same, the dock will only be there for beaming the games on your tv. No super-special chips inside the dock whatsoever.

As for Zelda: It may look and play a bit better on Switch, but not that much. Remember Twilight princess. There wasn't a gigantic graphical leap in the Wii version, right.

From Nintendo's standpoint it would be a epic fail if at home the games would look better compared to on the go. The whole idea is that you get the premium experience EVERYWHERE!

This just in "reports suggest". This could all be true or complete crap no one knows.

I knew custom was a bad thing in terms of performance. This setup will be less powerful than a lot of cell phones.

Nintendo has again made a little poodle of a system. I hope all goes well and the games are great. But I was hoping for more.

@Mister_Wu believe it. Nintendo has gymped the x1 chipset and called it a switch

@PlywoodStick Nintendo possibly wanted a smaller thermal envelope. Also maybe this has to do with chip yield.

Not sure, but this is truly awful if true. That would mean switch is no where near as powerful as Xbox one.

@Sandman83 That is PC footage, not Switch. But yes, the Switch can use Unreal Engine 4 last I checked. I think we can expect some very nice visuals, just not quite at the Xbox One S or PS4 Pro level.

@Danrenfroe2016 We have to keep in mind that leaps in technological prowess matter less and less as time goes on. It was a much bigger deal 10 years ago. For another, both Nintendo and Nvidia have worked on this thing. They wouldn't release some gimpy device that can't hold it's own, because a lot is hinging on the Switch being a success for both companies. Plus, the main reason the 3rd parties backed off from the Wii U was because sales dropped off in a hurry, plus the architecture was truly ancient. The Switch is using modern architecture, plus overall better hardware, and they'll be catering to 3rd parties a lot more this time. Another big indicator that the Switch will be a solid system is Bethesda's remarks on it. Todd Howard found it very impressive, and said that it was the best demo he's ever seen at E3, and that they're "definitely going to be supporting it." This coming from the company that scoffed at the Wii U.

If the system sells well, the games will come. Maybe not some of the huge, major blockbuster AAA games, but the rest will. We've heard nothing but enthusiasm from developers so far. Definitely a lot more than we heard about the Wii U. In any case, I'd say we should wait for January 12th before we make any major assumptions. Rumors are rumors, after all, and there is a lot of opportunity for false information to spread like wildfire.

@CircuitWrangler3 I'm easily suckered in! xD

At the end of the day it doesn't matter to me on a personal level; Nintendo has been my main system of choice since I was 4. Big N has all my favourite franchises so regardless of the Switch's sheer horsepower I'll be getting it anyway.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE
At this point it's best to hope this doesn't replace real handhelds, but that line is at least been their lifeblood these last few years.

Between wonky design choices, lack of convenience, and portability issues this not bode well for the Switch's life as a handheld, and further hammers home the point that the 3DS is going to need a real successor.

@dronesplitter
Id ideally like a 3DS successor, mostly because the Switch didn't hit the notes a handheld gamer wants out of a device(even before these rumors/specs came out).

The idea that this may replace their handheld line is truly troubling and might honestly drive me away from the company.

@KirbyTheVampire I agree. But still don't like Nintendo actively shooting it's self in foot.

IMHO Nintendo needs to atleast be on par with Xbone. But there is no way with this setup.

@Danrenfroe2016 I guess we'll have to see how it goes. There is talk of PS4/Xbone ports being very possible and easy to accomplish. The real question isn't whether it can run games from those platforms, but specifically how large said games can be. Even if it can't run some of the huge AAA games, I could see a scenario happening where if the Switch sells well, we could see future iterations of the Switch that can run any game. If it flops, it flops. If it doesn't, it might be a real game changer in the whole industry. After all, they've proven that handhelds can be console quality, so why wouldn't all consoles in the future be console/handheld hybrids? Might not happen, but it's interesting to think about.

@Mister_Wu The Tegra X1's GPU can peak at 1 GHz while active, regardless of whether it's host device is set to a power source or not. Just take a look at the Google Pixel C tablet as proof of that. There's no reason why the NX cannot match that performance, as well, over a year after the Pixel C's release.

The only reason why it couldn't if is either the battery is weak, or the design is poor, creating overheating or instability problems. I doubt the former would be true, since there are tests revealing devices using the Tegra K1 to last at least 4-5 hours playing games like Skyrim, and the X1 has twice the K1's performance/efficiency. I certainly hope the latter is not true, but that would be a primary reason why it would be so severely underclocked during the middle of a game. However, I expect that heavy underclocking would only happen while it's not active, or in other words, when a game is not running. The newer 3D games proposed for the NX wouldn't even run on a measly 300 MHz- that's only a little higher up than the 3DS GPU's 268 MHz! Even 768 MHz is cripplingly slow for more demanding titles.

The dock itself is not a "mode," and won't actually supply processing power to the NX. It's just to provide a constant power source (and potentially cooling), allowing the NX to up the output from 720p to 1080p without using the battery. However, the Tegra X1 is actually capable of 2160p output at peak, so the the NX can technically support 1080p where ever it's used. It might be prevented from doing so by factory default, but that's nothing some eventual mods can't change...

@Danrenfroe2016 Both the New and old 3DS use a GPU clocked at 268 MHz. (Which can be overclocked if the system is modded!) There's no way that the NX would be clocked so ridiculously low as nearly 300 MHz in the middle of a game. That would just be for when it's idling, and in menus after booting the system, or something.

You probably couldn't even run the newer 3D games being proposed for the NX at a measly 300 MHz, and even 768 MHz would struggle with a lot of them. The fact that anyone believes that such massive underclocking would occur in game for any reason, even battery concerns, goes to show how little they know about computers... And I don't know that much in the grand scheme of things!

All of that said, I hope we don't see any overheating issues, because that would imply some very poor design. The Google Pixel C has proven that the Tegra X1 can be used in a mobile device without needing a constant power source, like the NX's dock. So I would hope that the NX, being the newer and (I assume) more efficient tech, shouldn't have a problem there. But we'll see.

@PlywoodStick agreed on the potential of the X1, code in the Unreal Engine confirmed that the Switch will run with lower graphical quality - beside resolution - while undocked. Remember that the previous Eurogamer's report on the Switch was spot-on, it's hard to think they now want to lose all the credibility they earned by posting ultra-accurate numbers (down to a decimal point!) that are made-up. Most importantly, clocks are just one part of the equation, the number of shaders, TMUs, ROPs and the internal GPU architecture are no less important, this is why I want to know all these other data before making any further consideration on power.